Updating magento 1.5?

[j4g3d]

Firstly let me point out im a absolute N00B at magento or anything to do with it. I can barely upload products to it!.

However when my designer created a magento site for me on my godaddy hosting using linux server he mentioned it was an absolute pain to get it working with godaddy. He eventually got it working just about but its always been quite slow to load any page.

Anyway im running magento 1.5.1.0 (i presume that is v1.5) and im interested to get it all updated to the latest version possible? Would that be 1.9? Firstly could anyone explain what benefits i would get from updating?

Secondly, how to go about updating? i have no idea (clueless ole me!)..

Appreciate your input.

[Brent W Peterson]

You should first get your site off of Goddady, I would recommend Nexess. They have a hosting account for as little as $20 month

second, you should upgrade. But how to do it is a big question and can't be answered here. You should hire someone to do it for you if you are asking.

From 1.5->1.9 you will have quite a few theme and module modificiations. You should be aware of this.

[j4g3d]

Hi

Is siteground any good with magento also?.

Thanks

[kab8609]

I agree with Brent's answer. 

I've worked with Nexcess, MageMojo, and Rackspace all before and have had great results. Staying on a GoDaddy plan is asking for trouble.

1.5 -> 1.9 is a big jump. There will be theme changes and extension changes. I suggest you learn about version control and setup a dedicated local environment and a dedicated staging environment. This is a project that will need to be planned carefully. 

[ptomter]

@Brent W Peterson, why is godaddy not good for Magento, please explain as sharing knowledge for us that doesnt know want to know. 

@j4g3d, I have a couple of houndred Magento customers on different servers/hosting providers, and my experiance that you always will get Magento to work someway / somehow on most of them. But the experiance, and some are more fitted for Magento.  We have a section here in the forum, where I would reccomend you ask regarding hosting providers that work good with Magento.

[Brent W Peterson]

Why I wouldn't recommend GoDaddy;

Lack of support in general

No knowledge of Magento by support people

Inadequate/ under tuned servers

Low resources shared to account if on shared server

If on shared server, you account could bring down another account or another account could bring down your account

servers are not pre-tested using Magento (any version)

Magento hosting partners offer you support and pre-tuned servers tested with Magento in mind